The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling, by Maryrose Wood

BARBARAAAAAA!!!!!!

It's all her fault that I picked up this book.

It is not her fault that I only purchased the first book in the series. But I didn't KNOW that the book involves a cliff hanger and that you MUST read on if you wanted to know anything else. And I don't know when I can get to my local used book store next. And OH the AGONY of WAITING! (Have I ever mentioned that I'm not a very patient person?)

If you have not yet heard of this series and don't know the story, let me pass the enthusiasm along, if I may. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling has us meeting Miss Penelope Lumley, a recent graduate from the Swanburne-Academy of Poor Bright Females. No one knows where Lumley came from and she, herself, is unaware of her past. She only knows that she is grateful to have been placed at Swanburne.

One day she receives a job offers as a governess and, being that she has no family and no place to call home, she is sent out from Swanburne to Ashton Place, the home of Lord Fredrick Ashton and his new bride, Lady Constance. Lord Ashton likes to hunt and he found something rather unusual on one of his excursions - three small children. These children were raised by a pack of wolves and Lumley has been hired on to teach them how to be human and to know their Latin and Greek and all such important things. This is about all I can say of the plot without spoiling things considerably.

Who are these kids? Why did they live in the wolves? Where are their parents? What shall be their future? Apparently I must get my hands on a copy of Book 2 post haste in order to come to a greater understanding!

I'm hooked. And I'm here to tell you so. Care to join me in my agony of suspense? It's a curious tale told by Maryrose Wood. She has a lovely sense of irony in her writing which makes the book positively amusing as well as spell-binding. On the heels of reading The Jungle Books, I can note a certain degree of similarities, but the telling of this tale is unique enough to be enthralling. I'm going to annoy you with any further positive adjectives so I'll leave it at that. Get a copy! Join me on this quest to find out more about these incorrigibles.

Thank you, Barbara? I think?

The Trouble With Chickens: A J.J. Tully Mystery, by Doreen Cronin

Hilarious. Fun. You'll be especially prone to like this one if you are at all a fan of Hank the Cowdog.

I purchased a copy of The Trouble with Chickens on a whim for Bookworm1. I thought he might like it. I saved it for his birthday (which was last week) and gifted it to him as his birthday read aloud. It was absolutely perfect.

J.J. is a retired search and rescue dog who lives in the backyard of Barb (whom we never meet). He is yard mates with five chickens: Mama Moosh and her four balls of fluff. J.J. is approached by Moosh one afternoon with a request to help her find two of her missing chicks. J.J. accepts the job in trade for a cheeseburger which she agrees to. He begins his search and all evidence points to the idea that the two missing chickens are inside the house, being held prisoner by "Vince the Funnel." Vince is a dachshund with chronic ear infection who has to wear a cone. He's got a bad temper and a taste for chickens . . . if he could just get a hold of one without that dratted cone interfering with his business. J.J. and the chickens hatch a plan to get into the house and find the missing fowl, but things don't work out quite the way that they originally planned.

Cronin has a pretty funny (in our opinion) sense of humor. We all chuckled our way through this very easy-to-read chapter book. The chapters are incredibly short and the book took about one total hour to read aloud. Happy birthday fare indeed! I personally found J.J. to be quite reminiscent of Hank the Cowdog. Good ol' Hank is not to be missed and is the original official-in-any-capacity dog that you are going to want to make friends with. As my kids have been exposed to Hank already, I didn't mind them spending time with J.J. (In other words, it won't interfere with their reading education. Wink.) I may or may not have given Hank's voice to J.J. as I read it aloud, because dogs who think highly of their personal careers sort of sound the same to me. If you decide to start with J.J., and your kids like him, then by all means plan on submerging them into Hank as they grow up.

That said, we liked The Trouble with Chickens well enough to collectively agree that we'd like to search and rescue unto ourselves the second book in this series, The Legend of Diamond Lil. I predict another J.J. read aloud in our future.

For now, just passing the word along. This is a fun one!

*****
J.J. actually reminds me so much of Hank that I had to see if Cronin had ever mentioned her inspiration for this story. I found this author interview which makes for an interesting read and confirmed that . . . Hank had nothing whatsoever to do with her.

A Nest for Celeste

We finished it! It only took about a month, but we did it! It's a short, fast read but our out-of-town excursions drew the story out for us a bit.

A Nest for Celeste is supposed to be "a story about art, inspiration and the meaning of home." Okaaay. I wish authors and publishers wouldn't try to put the moral of the book in the title or use it as a selling point. A story well-written will speak to others in any variety of ways. When writing fiction, I think you should let the story speak for itself without trying to brand it to fit it into a thematic unit. But that's my opinion and my preference.

Regardless of my distaste for the book's subtitle, I still found this story to be quite fun and all of my children loved it. It makes for a very pleasant read aloud. In fact, I would rather recommend it only as a read aloud because it does have some political statements to make which I think require some discussion. But only the whole, it's very fun and I do not at all regret the time spent reading it.

In this book we met Celeste, the mouse. Celeste lives on the ground floor of a plantation house outside of New Orleans in 1821. She was misplaced from her family and ended up in the house where two rats taught her to forage for food (in order to steal whatever she found). One day a man named Audubon, and his assistant, Joseph, come to stay at the plantation. Joseph finds Celeste, rescuing her from the cat and a lonely existence under the floorboards. The two make friends and Celeste discovers herself in a position to help with some of the artwork which Joseph and Mr. Audubon are creating. In this endeavor, Celeste finds herself making friends with various birds and finding herself not so very alone in life by the end of the story.

This story is a fictionalized account (obviously, ha) of Mr. John James Audubon's 1821 stay outside of New Orleans, documenting the birds he found in the area and creating paintings of them. As this story documents, the way that Audubon went about painting his specimens was to first kill the bird and then use wires and string to pose them in lifelike positions so as to bring his pictures to life. His pictures are unarguably quite beautiful, but our present day sensibilities prefer us not to kill anything at any time (unless it's a baby in a womb and then you can kill it at any time, no problem). (Hey. If Cole can make his political argument, I can make mine. All's fair.) The author of this book does try to paint the picture that the killing of one bird of a species was a sad and horrifying thing. I don't agree with him of course.

My "political" (or moral) argument with Cole did lead to a discussion with my boys about our responsibility to take dominion of the earth, learning as much as we can about it. We are equally responsible to care for the animals, knowing that if we are negligent in this area, we can easily eradicate certain species as a direct result of our greed. We talked about the fact that we are allowed to kill only the animals that we need for food but not any more than we can eat. For example, it would have been wrong for Audubon to kills 15 osprey to make one picture. I do think though that it was ok for him to have killed one for scientific purposes, provided there were more to be found (and, in 1821, there were!). We had a healthy discussion between ourselves, talking about the differences between my opinion and Cole's. (I always make sure to lay out the arguments of the other side so that they aren't caught off guard by them at a later date) Because we discussed the differences, it didn't bug me tremendously that these arguments were in the book. At the same time, it did distract me from the story at hand and so my enjoyment of the read was not the same as the bookworms' who each enjoyed it whole heartily.

It should also be noted that there is some anti-gun propaganda in the book as well. (For, after all, the guns were used to kill the birds.) On one occasion, Joseph is retrieving a bird from some tall grass when he is accidentally shot by one of the men who are with Audubon. (It is a true fact that Audubon's assistant was shot while staying at the plantation, by the way.) I chose not to discuss gun control arguments with my kids this time (with this book).

Can I recommend A Nest for Celeste? Sure! Just know that there is a discussion about Audubon's practice of killing things so as to prepare yourself to talk about it. If you think that won't interfere with your ability to enjoy the story, then by all means pick this one up! It does have some sweet and touching elements, although I didn't really think the subtitle held true. Yes, there is some art being discussed and Celeste's home changes a few times but those points are so minor in the book (in my opinion) that that is not what stood out to me.

And with that I've probably written enough of an opinion on a middle grade piece of fiction and so I'll leave it at that! But on a slightly different topic -

After we finished up this book, I found a copy of The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon at the library (yes, I went to the library again!) and had Bookworm1 read it.

This is an excellent picture book for grade school students on Audubon, providing a couple of paragraphs of information per page spread. The information is given in story form and through it we learned how Audubon can be credited with attaching the first tracking device to a bird (a piece of thread!) to learn about the bird's migration habits. Also, he was considered the greatest painter of birds at his time. Incredibly, his original book - full of life-sized drawings - required two people to be able to turn one of its pages! Here is a picture of the set at auction to give you an idea of what they looked like:

I think that's just astounding! Exactly where would you put them in your house and how on earth would you store them!?

Even still, his work is somewhat hard to obtain a copy of. Check out Amazon's price HERE. I'll just content myself with looking at his work via Google Images, thanks!

My favorite:

I realize it's of a crow, yes, I do. But I like the green background. So, there you have it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

I hardly remember now what my expectations were when I launched into the reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. Certainly whatever happy thoughts they might have included have since been erased. In all honesty, I don't know what to do with this read. Did I like it? No. Not really. Am I glad to have read it? I don't know, exactly. I've held off on writing out my thoughts for about two weeks trying to decide and I'm no closer to a conclusion. I expect my overall opinion of this one will be shaped through the discussion of it.

If you are a regular around these parts, you know I tend not to pay attention to plots or subjects until I've cracked open the pages of any particular book. I like to be surprised by stories and not know too much about them before I begin. Such was the case with The Picture of Dorian Gray. My only interactions with the story were from a brief clip I saw from the 1945 movie version featuring Angela Landsbury. I never watched the full movie (although I hope to do so this week or next). (As a slight aside, after completing the book I looked up a bunch of movie trailer clips on Youtube to see if there was a more modern version that might be palatable. I discovered that Prince Caspian - or rather, the actor who played him - starred as Dorian Gray in a 2009 film adaptation which also boasts the acting talents of Colin Firth. I don't think I'll be watching the 2009 version! The trailer tells me not to. I did, however, began watching the 2005 version starring Josh Dahumel and knew within 6 minutes it was a no-go. The story was changed significantly and the acting is downright laughable.) But getting back to the book, I paid so little attention to it before diving in that I didn't even consciously note that Oscar Wilde was the playwright who wrote The Importance of Being Earnest. That play and this book (his only full length novel) are the two pieces of work which Wilde is most noted for.

Upon reading the Introduction, I discovered two things right off the bat:

1. Oscar Wilde practiced homosexuality. He lived in England in the turn of the century when homosexuality was a punishable crime. Wilde was eventually put on trial for his crime and his novel was brought against him as evidence, helping to convict him. He was sentenced to hard labor for two years as a result. Upon his release, he moved from England, never to return.

2. The Picture of Dorian Gray has strong homosexual allusions in it. In this story, a painter by the name of Basil Hallward has a passionate regard for Dorian Gray and the reader can only assume that his passion is sexual in nature. Dorian seems oblivious to Basil's feelings, being "straight" himself, but Wilde does hint at the possibility that Dorian is bi-sexual later on in the story. The description of Basil's emotions towards Dorian truly leave the reader in little doubt as to Wilde's intentions for the characters.

Upon this story's original release in 1890, the British public outcry was so harsh that Oscar Wilde was forced to revise his tale, eliminating some passages (which contained more overt homoerotic references), adding an additional seven chapters,  and simplifying the moral of the story. His revised manuscript was published in 1891 and this is the version we read today. Many scholars believe that Wilde would prefer us reading his 1890 version and I don't doubt that's the case because every artist (pridefully or otherwise) prefers his original work to stand.

The book asks several questions, the chief being whether beauty should be man's chief pursuit in life. What makes something beautiful? Who decides that and in what manner do we form our conclusions? These questions may sound familiar to you, the modern reader. The other theme of the book is sin: who defines it and how (and why) shall we regulate it? We still ask such questions which is likely why people are still drawn to the story of Dorian Gray. These questions have existed since the serpent approached Eve in the Garden of Eden and verbally parlayed with her over what sin was and whether or not it would effect her. Eve eventually sewed fig leaves together, hoping to convince God that fig leaves were beautiful and that nothing whatsoever had gone wrong. Dorian Gray wished that the portrait of him would bear the shame and disgrace of his sins, but that his physical being would be unmarred, forever beautiful, leaving no trace of his sinful behavior.

(By the way, as an aside, I am intentionally not discussing the plot here so as not to give away anything that happens in the book. If you want to know what the story is about, check out the Wikipedia page on this book for quick and easy reference.)

Now, why can I not make up my mind whether or not I really like this book? Well, I think that is because Wilde knows sin and therefore he describes it well. Let me be quick to note that we all sin and we all fall short of the glory of God. It would be easy for anyone to identify the bad behavior of Dorian Gray in this book. Whether the sin be homosexuality or murder or knocking your brother's brick tower over because you got mad at him, we humans know sin and - if we are Christians - we know it ought to be confessed and repented of. Dorian Gray never repents and so the book feels full of despair in some respects. It's a hopeless end. Hopeless ends are hard to think about and make us uncomfortable. Do they happen? Yes. Every day. All the time. That doesn't make it any easier to read about them nor should it.

Wilde wishes to moralize his readers into questioning their morals, in an attempt to sound wise and philosophical. His ramblings on morality, however, are just a bunch of fig leaves. He cannot hide the fact that he is an unrepentant sinner. We humans must realize and acknowledge that we are not the source of Truth and therefore it is not ours to shape it or regulate. Scriptures are clear that God is a holy God. He has made rules for us to follow and, if we reject God's demands that we repent and turn from our wickedness, then we are in sin. He is glorious and perfect and He would have us be in fellowship with Him (an amazing thing to consider!)! But we can only approach Him having repented and having submitted ourselves to Him as our Redeemer and Lord. It is not for us to decide how our repentance should look or what it should entail but ours to submit to and be grateful. Wilde does not acknowledge this and so the book is rather painful to read. Wilde clearly could not be happy, neither could his characters, and there is sorrow in that.

At the same time, this book is interesting to read as a Christian because it takes a good look at what life looks like when you have not repented of your sins. Dorian had a chance to see the blackness of his soul. We don't have pictures hanging in our homes which display to us the depths of our depravity but what if we did? We would probably hide them in dark, secret, locked up rooms also. In truth though, we do try to hide our sins. It always proves a futile, desperate attempt to hide our sins but still - we try! Dorian Gray offers a more visibly concrete idea of the need to see our sin, call it for what it is, and deal with it, rather than trying to make it sound glamorous and beautiful. Dorian Gray is definitely a thought-provoking read, even if it does provoke unpleasant thoughts. I would never say that this book is to be avoided. I can only go so far as to say that it was not an enjoyable read for me because it was so full of secret despair. It is a short book that really packs a punch, that much is certain!

I'm definitely interested in hearing what the rest of you thought of this book, whether you read it along with the book club this month or have read it sometime in the past.

Note: This is not the concluding post for the book club. Bekah will be back to share her concluding thoughts on this book next week so stay tuned for that.

What's On My Nightstand - November

Yes! Moving right along to the end of the year. I tell you time is going by faster and faster. What is up with that?!

October has been a grand month around here. We traveled south to see family and have some fun (and spend time in the SUNSHINE) and that interrupted my reading time a bit. But it was worth it! Oh, yes it was.

Here is last month's nightstand list. I think I estimated correctly for last month. I'm still working through some of those reads but I shall finish them all before the end of the month.

I did complete my reading of:

The Jungle Books (linked to thoughts) - Surprising in some respects but I did appreciate the reading of it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray. Review forthcoming. Woah.

Crazy Busy which I recommend as good food for thought. It won't solve your problems but it might help you to think through them.

The kids and I are about halfway through with A Nest for Celeste. It's a fast read and I anticipate us wrapping it up by next week.

I still haven't started The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story but that's up next. I was working to finish Dorian Gray.

And now to make a plan for November. I think it will go something like this:

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott.

This is the November selection for the Reading to Know (Classics) Book Club. If you'd care to read (or re-read) along with us, please feel free to jump in!


The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling which comes recommended by Barbara at Stray Thoughts. I picked up a copy and took it with me on vacation but didn't get to it. I'm curious though!

Under the Lilacs, also by Louisa May Alcott. Just because. I purchased a copy but have not yet read it. I should.

Then I've accepted the following titles for review:

What Women Should Know about Facing Fear

And the author of the following e-mailed asking if I'd like to read her book. I could not resist. I'm very much looking forward to diving in and seeing what she has to share.

Bargain With A Devil: The Tragedy Behind Gone With The Wind

And we'll leave it at that as far as expectations are concerned. :)

Now, off to hear about what you all are reading! And my TBR list will grow longer, no doubt . . .

Beautiful Lego, by Mike Doyle

Beautiful LEGO is a veritable feast for Lego-lovin' eyes!

Our entire family enjoyed browsing and staring at the amazing images within this book. This is not your typical how-to LEGO guide book. Rather, it is a collection of photographs of the amazing things that other (brilliant) people have created with their LEGOs.

The book is divided up into sections, showing off various animals, movie characters, vehicles, cube men, aliens, and astounding-looking landscapes. Truly, the cover art on this book speaks entirely for itself. Do you want to look at jaw dropping LEGO pieces of art? Look no further!

The author and editor of this book, Mike Doyle, is a LEGO art creator himself. Amid these designs by 77 different artists, you'll find some of Doyle's creations as well. His pièce de résistance, if you will, includes an incredibly detailed delapadated Victorian House (set "in mud" though...I don't get that). Still, whether or not I understand what the artist wanted to get at, it's still amazing to look at the pictures and try to figure out how they created the sculptures that they did. If you like LEGOs at all, you'll be interested in this book! We've already devoted hours of our time browsing it. (I'm not exaggerating on the time. We took it with us on our recent road trip. We literally have spent hours with this book!)

Need some additional proof of the wonder which is contained in Beautiful LEGO?! Here are a few of the images that you will see inside:

As I say, it's a feast for the eyes. And while none of us are likely to have all the LEGOs needed or necessary to make the incredible landscapes, kids can definitely be inspired to use the bricks that they own to make their own beautiful LEGO designs. And that's why I love this book as much as I do - it inspires. (And humbles. I should mention that it also humbles.)

For LEGO enthusiasts, this book is a must see!

** I can't fail to make one note about the book. Despite the fact that the title is "Beautiful Lego" there are some rather ugly Lego creations contained within. For example, there's one sculpture called "The Doll" which looks as if you can peel back the skin and see the 'blood and guts' of the doll on the inside. I think it looks creepy and not at all beautiful. There are a couple of less than beautiful additions. However, if I had to slap a percentage on creepy vs. astounding, I would say this book is 5% creepy and 95% pure awesome.

Many thanks to No Starch Press for sending a copy of this book my direction in order to facilitate this review. I received no additional compensation for this post. And all enthusiastic opinions are 100% my very own. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray :: RtK Book Club October

Because yes, it really is October now.

This month's book club selection was picked by Rebekah at Bekahcubed. She will also be hosting the discussion of said book. Here are her opening thoughts.


******

The Christian radio station in town scheduled Ravi Zacharias for the 9:00 slot on Sunday morning, which meant we listened to the first half of "Let My People Think" on our way to church every week during my early teenage years.

I remember enjoying Ravi's teachings, but don't remember much of what he said--except for one thing. On more than one occasion, I remember him recounting the basic plot of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I was enthralled by the story as told by Ravi Zacharias--a modern day Faustian tale crossed with Ecclesiastes. A young man wishes that a portrait could age while he remains young and innocent-looking. When he first sees the ugly effects of sin upon the portrait, he locks the portrait away and lives a life of excess without minding the consequences. He lives a life of hedonism, unchecked by any external flaw. He remains beautiful, young, untouched by the horrible things he has seen and done. But one day, he enters the secret room, sees the hidden portrait, and discovers the effects of his life--a twisted, hideous portrait of his inner evil.

I don't know if Zacharias said it, or if it's just my memory inserting words in Zacharias's accent, but I imagine Zacharias's British English with an Indian accent pronouncing, "Meaningless, meaningless. All that pleasure worthless. And he fell on the picture with a knife, only to fall dead-a victim of his own pleasure."

It was a wonderful tale, a powerful tale. I vowed that I would read it.

Every time I made a list of books that I absolutely *must* read some day, I included The Picture of Dorian Gray on the list.

In my mid-teens, I picked up a copy of the book at the annual library book sale, determined to read it at last. I didn't.

I'd bought that with my mother's money (she didn't have time and I didn't have cash, so she sent me with money to the sale to pick up items of interest to the family)--which meant that when I left home for college, I left The Picture of Dorian Gray (Dover Thrift Editions) at my parent's house.

The book was still on my list of books to be read, and I thought of reading it every so often, but never when I was at the library--never when I actually had opportunity to pick up another copy.

Then Carrie asked me if I'd be willing to lead a month of discussion for the Reading to Know bookclub--which meant picking a work of classic literature to discuss.

I thought through the classic books I wanted to read, read through my endless lists of books-to-read-someday. I wondered if The Picture of Dorian Gray would work, proposed it tentatively because I had an inkling that it isn't necessarily squeaky clean (Wilde *is* an interesting character, after all), and was ecstatic when Carrie responded back in the affirmative.

I would lead a discussion of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I put the book on my Christmas list, received a beautiful new copy from my in-laws, and settled in to see if it was everything I'd hoped for.

(Yes, I read it in advance--which has turned out to be a good thing, since my reading life has slowed to a crawl, what with being newly married and in the midst of a pretty intense struggle with depression.)

Peoples. This book is definitely worth reading. I was right that it isn't squeaky clean. Gray's character is less than stellar and there is plenty of muck (although generally presented in a tasteful and non-explicit way)--but the story is powerful and thought provoking.

Read it with us?

I'd love for you to join me as I re-read this month and grapple with some of the topics Wilde brings up in this classic work.

*****
Will you? Read it along with us, that is? I'm so looking forward to it and was ecstatic when Rebekah picked it as her choice. I have never read it but have vague recollections of seeing a few moments of the movie version (the one with Angela Landsbury in it) and I've always been curious. Very much looking forward to this read and hope you are also!